Islam vs. “Radical” Islam? Can you tell the difference?

I would like some state-appointed or free, independent Islamic scholar — Western or not — to explain with a straight face to me and to the world, the essential, fundamental differences between Islam and “radical Islam” or “extremist” Islam. If Islam is not just a bizarre, death-worshipping “religion,” but basically a collectivist ideology bent on total submission of its adherents and of the world, moved by a gnawing appetite for total and universal domination, what are the salient, distinguishing differences? How would one explain the differences, say, between “ordinary” Communism and “radical” Communism, or between “ordinary” Nazism and a benign “moderate” Nazism?

You can’t list those distinguishing differences. They don’t exist. Islam is a one-size-fits-all system, from your footwear to your hairstyle to your diet.

Islam is “radical” because, as both a “religion” and as a political ideology, it prescribes total submission of the individual – indeed, of society – to the arbitrary and wholly irrational rules, permissions, prohibitions, and punishments of its “creed,” otherwise known as Sharia Law. Just as Nazism and Communism required the total submission of the individual to the state, Islam requires the total submersion of the individual to the caliphate.
.Who will save us from these degenerates:

In Finland, since the court’s decision, citizens are now required to make a distinction, entirely fictitious, between “Islam” and “radical Islam,” or else they may find themselves prosecuted and fined for “slandering and insulting adherents of the Islamic faith.”

I would like some state-appointed or free, independent Islamic scholar — Western or not — to explain with a straight face to me and to the world, the essential, fundamental differences between Islam and “radical Islam” or “extremist” Islam. If Islam is not just a bizarre, death-worshipping “religion,” but basically a collectivist ideology bent on total submission of its adherents and of the world, moved by a gnawing appetite for total and universal domination, what are the salient, distinguishing differences? How would one explain the differences, say, between “ordinary” Communism and “radical” Communism, or between “ordinary” Nazism and a benign “moderate” Nazism?

You can’t list those distinguishing differences. They don’t exist. Islam is a one-size-fits-all system, from your footwear to your hairstyle to your diet.

Islam is “radical” because, as both a “religion” and as a political ideology, it prescribes total submission of the individual – indeed, of society – to the arbitrary and wholly irrational rules, permissions, prohibitions, and punishments of its “creed,” otherwise known as Sharia Law. Just as Nazism and Communism required the total submission of the individual to the state, Islam requires the total submersion of the individual to the caliphate.

Bergman, writing about Terhi Kiemunki, a Finnish writer, was found guilty of “slandering and insulting adherents of the Islamic faith,” and noted that,

Finland is the European country most recently to adopt the way that European authorities sanction those who criticize Islam. According to the Finnish news outlet YLE, the Pirkanmaa District Court found the Finns Party politician, Terhi Kiemunki, guilty of “slandering and insulting adherents of the Islamic faith” in a blog post of Uusi Suomi. In it, she claimed that all the terrorists in Europe are Muslims. The Court found that when Kiemunki wrote of a “repressive, intolerant and violent religion and culture,” she meant the Islamic faith.

During the trial, Kiemunki was asked why she did not make a distinction between Islam and radical Islam. She replied that she meant to refer to the spread of Islamic culture and religion, and that she “probably should have” spoken of radicalized elements of the religion instead of the faith as a whole. Kiemunki was fined 450 euros. Her lawyer has appealed the verdict.

That was Kiemunki’s unfortunate omission. But, let us not forget late critic of Islam, Oriana Fallaci. She excoriated Islam, setting fire to the whole tree. Srdja Trifkovic in her Chronicles article of December 13, “Europe’s Submission,” wrote,.

The writing on Europe’s wall was clear a decade ago, when the late Oriana Fallaci-for decades Italy’s best-known journalist-was indicted in the Italian city of Bergamo for “hate crimes” and “defaming Islam.” Fallaci, a self-described “Christian atheist” and a leftist, in the aftermath of 9/11, had become an outspoken foe of Europe’s Islamization. Her 2002 book The Rage and the Pride caused a sensation. It is not just the Western culture and way of life that the jihadist hates, she wrote. Blinded as they are by cultural myopia, the Westerners should understand that a war of religion was in progress, a war that the enemy calls Jihad, which seeks the disappearance of our freedom and our civilization

“. . . our way of living and dying, our way of praying or not praying, our way of eating and drinking and dressing and entertaining and informing ourselves. You don’t understand or don’t want to understand that if we don’t oppose them, if we don’t defend ourselves, if we don’t fight, the Jihad will win . . . And with that it will destroy our culture, our art, our science, our morals, our values, our pleasures….”

A decade later, the evidence that Fallaci’s grim forecast was correct is everywhere we look. In France in 2013, Ivan Rioufol, a respected author and Le Figaro’s columnist for 30 years, faced criminal charges for insulting Islam. Renaud Camus, one of France’s most prominent writers, was charged with “incitement to racial hatred” in 2014, found guilty, and ordered to pay a 4000-euro fine for warning of the danger of the “Great Replacement,” the colonization of France by Muslim immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa, which threatens to “mutate” the country and its culture permanently. In Germany, Lutz Bachmann, the founder of the Pegida anti-Islamization movement, is currently on trial. So is Marine Le Pen of the National Front in France. The list goes on.

In Finland, and practically everywhere else, to fail to distinguish in public statements between Islam and “radical” Islam is to be tarred with the brush of “Islamophobia,” surely a pejorative, meaning having an “irrational” fear of Islam. It is in wide use in every Western country and is used by the MSM to slander anyone critical of Islam. But, anyone who knows a smidgen about the origin and practice of Islam is justifiably and rationally fearful of Islam, especially if he is an “infidel.” Where did the term come from? Discover the Networks notes:

The term “Islamophobia” was invented and promoted in the early 1990s by the International Institute for Islamic Thought (IIIT), a front group of the Muslim Brotherhood. Former IIIT member Abdur-Rahman Muhammad — who was with that organization when the word was formally created, and who has since rejected IIIT’s ideology — now reveals the original intent behind the concept of Islamophobia: “This loathsome term is nothing more than a thought-terminating cliche conceived in the bowels of Muslim think tanks for the purpose of beating down critics.” In short, in its very origins, “Islamophobia” was a term designed as a weapon to advance a totalitarian cause by stigmatizing critics and silencing them.

This plan was an outgrowth of the Muslim Brotherhood’s “General Strategic Goal for North America,” by which the organization aimed to wage “a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands … so that … God’s religion [Islam] is made victorious over all other religions.”

Members of the British press can be charged with “Islamophobia” or worse if a writer identifies a terrorist or a criminal who has raped or murdered a Briton as a Muslim (its current term is the euphemism”Asian”). Nevertheless, the European Union has ordered the UK press to append blinders to its journalists (surely not a precedent by now). Europe-Israël, in a column on November 18th, {“European Union Orders British Press NOT to report when terrorists are Muslims,” reported,

According the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) – part of the Council of Europe – the British press is to blame for increasing hate speech and racist violence. On October 4, 2016, the ECRI released a report dedicated only to Britain. The report said:

Some traditional media, particularly tabloids… are responsible for most of the offensive, discriminatory and provocative terminology. The Sun, for instance, published an article in April 2015 entitled “Rescue boats? I’d use gunships to stop migrants”, in which the columnist likened migrants to “cockroaches”…

ECRI is basing its report on a recent study from Matthew Feldman, Professor at Teesside University. This study compiled anti-Muslim incidents before and after terrorist’s attacks.

Politically Correct writing acts as a privately or government mandated “governor” on thinking, stopping writers and modern reporters from committing the “sin” of “Islamophobia” or “hate speech.” Giulio Meotti in his Gatestone column of December 6th, “The West’s Politically Correct Dictatorship,” elaborated:

Under this politically correct dictatorship, Western culture has established two principles. First, freedom of speech can be restricted any time someone claims that an opinion is an “insult.” Second, there is a vicious double standard: minorities, especially Muslims, can freely say whatever they want against Jews and Christians….

There is no better ally of Islamic extremism than this sanctimony of liberal censorship: both, in fact, want to suppress any criticism of Islam, as well as any proud defense of the Western Enlightenment or Judeo-Christian culture…..

Political correctness is also having a huge impact on big business: Kellogg’s withdrew advertising from Breitbart for being “not aligned with our values” and Lego dropped advertising with Daily Mail, to mention just two recent cases.

Politically Correctness has no bounds, no demarcation lines. Everything is fair game to warp, subvert, and destroy, from wedding cake bakers to Halloween costumes to national security. To date, there have been no Muslim walkers of zombies on The Walking Dead. The producers of that TV series do not dare show any. But then, most Muslims are already “walking dead.” Perhaps the producers sense that. The irony is something to relish.

Au contraire, Mr. Obama. Islam is eminently slander worthy.

Edward Cline is the author of the Sparrowhawk novels set in England and Virginia in the pre-Revolutionary period, of several detective and suspense novels, and three collections of his commentaries and columns, all available on Amazon Books. His essays, book reviews, and other articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, the Journal of Information Ethics and other publications. He is a frequent contributor to Rule of Reason, Family Security Matters, Capitalism Magazine and other Web publications.

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4 thoughts on “Islam vs. “Radical” Islam? Can you tell the difference?”

It’s Islam, Stupid! What Moe said and did, to be obeyed and emulated by all Muslims, everywhere and at all times.

Radicalism, jihadism, extremism, Islamism & Islamofascism are lies. It ain’t a religion. It is not a political system. It has religious and political elements, but it is an Arab Mafia; a continuing war crime enterprise.